Those Nights
by Untiltheveryend7
Summary: Whoever said that an end of a war is a reason for jubilance was a fool. For, honestly, the war was the easiest part. At least with a war, you knew what you were fighting against; there was some kind of reason to it. Poetic justice.


_**Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. All rights go to JK Rowling/Warner Bros. I do not profit in any way.**_

_Those Nights_

It was during nights like these Harry struggled.

Ginny was at Quidditch Practise. Ron and Hermione were out.

Harry had retired to 'his' room.

It'd been Fred and George's, once.

He lay in bed, on top of the covers, staring up at the stained ceiling. Stained by chemicals, a lifetime ago. Stained by the twins; one half of whom was dead now, in the production of their joking products.

Ironic, really – for now the remaining twin hardly smiled.

It had been a year since the war, but the after-effects were far from diminished. Mrs. Weasley was broken. She tried to keep a mask on for the family, but Harry knew enough of grief to tell. Mr. Weasley wasn't much better. Both were achingly, dreadfully longing for their lost son.

Harry had seen Mrs. Weasley's Boggart – and he was numbly aware that her worst fear had been realised.

As he'd dreaded it would.

Everyone walked around in a pretence of happiness; contentedness, at the Burrow – but the truth was that they were all falling apart. Individually ripping themselves to pieces from the inside out.

But no-one would admit it to each other, through fear that they'd hurt each other more.

Whoever said that an end of a war is a reason for jubilance was a fool. For, honestly, the war was the easiest part. At least with a war, you knew what you were fighting against; there was some kind of reason to it. Poetic justice.

But this? No.

There was no justice in what Harry was feeling now; what the Weasley family were going through now. There was no explanation for the deep black hole inside of him that threatened to swallow any positive feeling he had.

It was like a weight. A weight attempting to drag him to the centre of the earth. It'd be nothing one minute. He'd be thinking about Quidditch, or listening to the Wireless – and then suddenly, there it was. He could feel it dragging him in, and he couldn't stop it. He didn't want to stop it.

No reasoning would help him now.

It'd be something stupid. Hermione would say something a little snappy, or he'd see _that look _on Mrs. Weasley's face, and the next minute, he'd be gone.

In those moments, Harry was present physically, but his mind was somewhere else.

_All those deaths. _The faces of his parents swum across his vision. Sirius. Dumbledore. Moody. Remus and Tonks.

_His fault. _Harry knew no-one would let him finish if he voiced the thought, but he knew it to be true. If he had never existed, they would be alive.

A small, rational, Hermioneish voice muttered at the back of his mind, 'Voldemort would still be alive,' but Harry knew better. Neville would've done it. Could've done it.

Probably would have made a cleaner job.

There was one thing, one feeling that kept him going during those nights.

Love.

He really was Dumbledore's man, and it may sound corny, pathetic even... but it was true.

_Love._ Love wasn't even a singular feeling. If it had been, it mightn't have been nearly powerful enough to combat the darkness. Love was anger. Love was giddiness. Love was jealousy. Love was humour. Love was every feeling in the world, intensified to levels that were hard to bear.

And it was singularly the most exhausting, wonderful treatment.

Recovery was Harry's love for Ginny. It was love for Ron and Hermione, for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. For Ron's brothers. For Teddy, his godson. And for Andromeda, Teddy's grandmother. And love didn't _disappear _with the dead. Love – real love – was everlasting. The dead would be with him forever, and it was comforting in a way, to know that there was no way they could slip further from his grasp; not like the living.

It was as if _love _was this _thing. _A physical object which somehow managed to plug the equally-physical void in his chest. Of course, the plug slipped occasionally, the vacuum weakened, usually on nights like these – where no-one was around to remind him that he _was _loved, and that he could love in return.

Harry would recover, in years to come. But the void would never disappear. He didn't want it to. It was a reminder of what they'd lost; how they'd suffered. It shaped him, but didn't define him.

For love was the defining feature of Harry Potter. And when he held his first born in his arms, years later, he remembered those nights. He grieved for the lives taken too early, and celebrated the new life he'd helped to bring into the world. He simultaneously hurt and revelled.

Love was strange like that.


End file.
